Simon von Boeselager, Country Manager Germany at Viatris brings extensive experience across pharmaceutical strategy, commercial leadership, and digital health. He highlights Germany’s role as a potential key launch market for Viatris’ innovative pipeline in Europe while emphasizing the challenges facing generics, including pricing pressure and supply security. His priorities include expanding patient access, strengthening the core portfolio, and driving sustainable growth through innovation.
Could you briefly introduce yourself to our international audience, sharing your professional background and what initially led you to the pharmaceutical industry?
I am 47 years old and originally from the Rhineland region in western Germany, between Bonn and Cologne. I studied economics across Switzerland, France, England, and Germany.
My initial contact with the pharmaceutical industry occurred during my university studies through an internship with Bayer in China. Following my studies, I joined Bayer in Germany within their in-house management consultancy, where I spent around six years.
I subsequently transitioned to Boehringer Ingelheim, where I held various commercial positions in sales and marketing, both at the global headquarters and within the UK affiliate. Towards the end of my tenure there, I spent two years leading global digital health initiatives out of Berlin, pulling together a cross-functional team focused on key international markets, including the US and China.
You joined Mylan shortly before its combination with Pfizer’s Upjohn business to create Viatris. How has the company transformed during this period, and what leadership insights did you gain from this transformation?
When I joined, the business operated as Mylan, an organisation predominantly focused on generic pharmaceuticals. At the same time, we maintained not only a broad presence across generic and branded generic but also on biosimilar, over-the-counter, and both patented and off-patent sales force-promoted products.
Following the combination of Upjohn and Mylan, Viatris became a truly global enterprise with a significantly strengthened presence in regions such as Asia. With that increased scale came the need to articulate a refined strategy. Viatris defined a direction to invest more heavily in innovative patented medicines alongside growing our strong base business. We aim to become a leaner, faster-growing company focused on key therapeutic areas while preserving our strong foundation.
To achieve greater focus and free up capital for new assets, we divested certain non-core segments, including over-the-counter products and biosimilars. Across this journey, the organisation has united around a single global mission: empowering people worldwide to live healthier at every stage of life.
From a leadership perspective, taking the team along was a crucial learning experience. Executing corporate strategic decisions, such as divesting segments where local teams had built substantial momentum, required extensive communication. In Germany, for example, our team had successfully grown the biosimilar businesses from zero into substantial commercial drivers. Letting those go required building deep trust in our long-term direction. It was deeply satisfying to see our people embrace that change and navigate the uncertainty. Today, with new assets having entered our pipeline and a clear plan to drive profitable growth over the next five years, that strategy is delivering tangible results.
Viatris executive leadership has characterized 2025 as a period of portfolio execution and 2026 as an inflection point. How does that corporate transition apply to Viatris Germany?
The year 2025 was focused on post-carve-out execution, reorganizing our operational setups and positioning the affiliate for our next five-year growth cycle.
The year 2026 represents the inflection point where that strategic groundwork turns into commercial execution. Having established our core structure, we are deploying advanced operational approaches across digital tools, artificial intelligence, marketing execution, and patient engagement. We are fully focused on driving future expansion rather than managing divestments.
Could you introduce Viatris Germany to our international audience in terms of operational scale, strategic footprint, and portfolio composition?
Viatris Germany forms part of a global healthcare organization focused on expanding patient access to medicines. Despite recent portfolio adjustments, we maintain a broad portfolio of over 400 marketed products serving numerous therapeutic areas, requiring specialized functional expertise across our teams.
While our commercial footprint spans a wide range of therapies, our top 10 sales force-promoted products represent approximately 50 percent of our total revenues. Alongside our high-volume generic operations, which demand exceptional supply resilience, we run dedicated commercial operations in competition with major global pharmaceutical peers.
Our physical footprint in Germany comprises several key locations. Our headquarters in Bad Homburg houses both affiliate teams and regional corporate functions. In Troisdorf, near Cologne, we operate a major global manufacturing and packaging facility – one of 27 manufacturing, packaging and distribution sites worldwide – supplying both domestic and international markets. In Hanover, we maintain a virtual location site following the integration of a legacy facility, with colleagues working remotely and attending our central offices as required. Finally, we have established a dedicated Viatris Collaboration Hub in Berlin to be present in this innovative ecosystem.
What is the strategic significance and relative contribution of the German affiliate to Viatris Europe?
Germany represents the largest healthcare market in Europe. However, total market volume does not automatically translate into affiliate size, as local market scale varies across Europe due to historical M&A integration.
Germany’s core importance lies in its role as a critical market and potential primary launch pad. Our global corporate strategy – investing in innovative patented medicines alongside our base business – aligns directly with the dynamics of the German market. Germany is expected to be a key European launch pad for our innovative patented pipeline, serving as a commercial growth engine for the broader European region while helping bring meaningful therapeutic innovation to patients sooner.
In terms of physical volume, Viatris ranks around 15th among pharmaceutical suppliers in Germany. To illustrate our reach, approximately 2,000 single doses of our medicines are dispensed to patients across Germany every minute. Behind those numbers are patients who depend on reliable access to medicines.
Looking ahead to the innovative pipeline, what role will Germany play, and how do you view the local pricing and regulatory environment?
I would answer this question in two parts. First, the importance of Germany for Viatris with regard to innovation, and then the broader environment.
As I mentioned earlier, Germany is expected to be among the first markets in which Viatris launches our innovative medicines. We are working closely with our global colleagues to ensure that the specific requirements of the German market are reflected in the global strategy. Germany is therefore a frontline market for our innovation pipeline, with launches targeted over the next two and a half years. Getting this right in Germany will be a critical success factor.
Germany also serves as an important reference market for other countries, meaning that decisions and outcomes here can have an impact beyond its borders, particularly across Europe. There is therefore a strong focus on ensuring that these launches are successful in Germany, and we are already working intensively on market access. These preparations begin well in advance, because the quality of the preparation ultimately determines the magnitude of success.
Turning to the broader environment, there is currently considerable change, and we need to distinguish between the environment for innovative brands and that for generic medicines.
For innovative brands, there have been a number of recent changes, including the so-called GKV-Beitragssatzstabilisierungsgesetz with further reforms planned before the end of the year. Some of these reforms add to the existing AMNOG process and create further challenges for innovative medicines. This is something we are also addressing through the industry associations in which we are involved.
For our existing portfolio, the dynamics are somewhat different, as the pressures are more pronounced in the generic medicines market.
Given that generics still represent the majority of your portfolio, how would you describe the current economic dynamics facing the generic industry in Germany?
The entire generic industry in Germany and across Europe is caught between decreasing prices and rising structural costs.
An independent study launched in September last year and conducted by New Angle, a consulting and research agency, sponsored by Viatris, covering 16 countries, including Germany, analysed price trends for the top 10 generic antibiotics between 2020 and 2024. The data revealed an average price drop of roughly 10 percent over that period, occurring simultaneously with sharp increases in labour, energy, and logistics expenses.
This creates a severe structural challenge. The German healthcare system strictly regulates generic medicines through fixed reimbursement prices, mandatory price freezes, and statutory discounts, leaving manufacturers virtually no flexibility to absorb rising input costs. This is particularly acute in Germany, where generic medicines account for 80 percent of total prescription volume, but represent only seven to 10 percent of total pharmaceutical spending.
This dynamic directly impacts portfolio management. Across our portfolio of over 400 products and more than 1,000 stock keeping units, we must continuously review economic sustainability. When specific lines become loss-making, manufacturers are forced to withdraw them, reducing the number of active suppliers for essential medicines and weakening overall supply chain security.
Beyond general pricing dynamics, what regulatory developments are creating operational pressures for generic manufacturers?
A major regional development is the proposed revision of the European Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive. While we fully support the objective of reducing micropollutants, the proposed Extended Producer Responsibility framework poses significant operational challenges that could jeopardize access to affordable off-patent medicines.
The framework attributes 80 percent of micro-pollution clean-up costs directly to the pharmaceutical and cosmetics sectors. For high-volume manufacturers operating with thin margins, these prospective financial liabilities are unsustainable. Furthermore, underlying environmental studies vary widely: European Commission estimates attribute 60 percent of pollution to pharmaceuticals, whereas independent academic studies indicate levels as low as six or seven percent – as demonstrated by a recent Greek study led by Professor Nikolaos Thomaidis.
We support the Medicines for Europe position and resolution approved by the European Parliament – calling the European Commission to act and urgently pause the Extended Producer Responsibility scheme, undertake a comprehensive independent reassessment of the implementation framework, including its methodology, economic assumptions and potential impact on medicine supply.
Domestically, although the German government initiated a broad pharmaceutical dialogue involving manufacturers and payers to address supply risks, we have yet to see concrete statutory mechanisms enacted to relieve generic pricing pressure.
How are statutory rebate contracts [Rabattverträge] shaping the market, and what specific structural reforms is Viatris advocating?
Historically, statutory rebate contracts delivered cost efficiencies and helped control pharmaceutical expenditure for statutory health insurance funds. However, when tender evaluations focus exclusively on price, they undermine long-term supply security.
While affordability and market competition remain necessary, we must redefine how the healthcare system values supply security. When single-winner tender structures lead to supply disruptions, resolving those shortages ultimately costs the system significantly more.
Through ProGenerika, we advocate for structural adjustments to tender design, including expanding multi-winner tender agreements to spread volume across multiple suppliers, reducing single-source dependencies. Additional non-price evaluation criteria should be applied selectively to designated lists of critical medicines rather than imposing administrative complexity across entire product portfolios.
Furthermore, supply chain resilience should not be conflated strictly with domestic or regional manufacturing re-shoring. Pharmaceutical supply networks are global and interconnected; true resilience requires geographical diversification across multiple global sources.
While legislative initiatives like the 2023 Fair Supply of Medicines Act [ALBVG] attempted to address shortage risks, tender selection three years on remains overwhelmingly driven by price, underscoring the need for further policy evolution.
What role do strategic partnerships and business development play?
Partnerships and business development are an important growth engine. We constantly evaluate new opportunities to add innovative or established products into our business. In Germany, we have been focusing on commercial partnerships.
A recent example is that we entered into a collaboration with the biopharmaceutical firm, Vertanical, to expand our presence in pain management. We also partnered with a digital therapeutics developer to launch a prescription digital health application [DiGA] in gastroenterology. These initiatives demonstrate how we combine external innovation with our established regulatory, market access, and commercial infrastructure in Germany.
Given that every therapeutic area involves distinct stakeholder dynamics, reimbursement frameworks, and patient requirements, our competitive advantage relies on maintaining deep cross-functional expertise across all operating segments.
How are your relationships with retail pharmacies evolving in Germany, particularly regarding expanded clinical services such as vaccinations?
Retail pharmacies are essential healthcare touchpoints, and our teams engage with hundreds of pharmacy professionals daily. In the absence of retail pharmacy chains in Germany, independent pharmacies play a critical role in local care delivery.
We are committed to ensuring that patients have access to vaccination through healthcare providers. With a strong presence in influenza vaccines, Viatris works closely with retail pharmacies to broaden access to seasonal immunizations. We assist pharmacists by providing information to platforms sharing practical frameworks regarding space allocation, infrastructure setup, and administrative workflows required to deliver these services efficiently.
With seasonal flu immunization rates in Germany falling short of World Health Organization targets, community pharmacies offer low-threshold access points for patients seeking weekend or after-hours vaccinations. We view pharmacy-administered vaccinations not as competition for primary care physicians, but as an essential complementary access point.
Similarly, for established primary care assets such as pharmaceuticals for men’s health, we participate actively in discussions surrounding potential prescription-to-over-the-counter switches and the evolving consultation role of community pharmacists.
Looking ahead, what excites you most about the future of Viatris in Germany, and what are your main strategic priorities?
What excites me most are our core objectives: addressing significant unmet medical needs, improving visibility especially on undertreated conditions and serving patients at scale with affordable medicines.
Our organizational culture is defined by hands-on execution, cross-functional collaboration, and an empowering, entrepreneurial mindset. While the Viatris name is relatively young, building a strong public profile in Germany behind our well-known product heritage represents an extraordinary opportunity.
Moving forward, our strategic priorities for Viatris in Germany rest on four pillars:
First, expanding patient access and addressing unmet medical needs through external partnerships and pipeline execution.
Second, maximizing and strengthening our established core base business by identifying new growth opportunities within our mature portfolio rather than focusing solely on maintenance.
Third, successfully bringing our pipeline assets to market by preparing the market access and commercial groundwork for our incoming patented, innovative therapies.
Fourth, continuing to build Viatris’s profile and corporate reputation in Germany as a partner of choice for commercial collaborations and an employer of choice. Having earned “Great Place to Work” recognitions validates the strength of our team culture throughout our recent organizational transformation.
Ultimately, our objective is to navigate ongoing healthcare reforms successfully, serve as a primary growth engine for Viatris in Europe, and maximize our contribution to patient care.
